Shares of Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) lost heavily in after-hours trading after the company reported earnings for its first quarter of Fiscal Year 2023. Earnings per share came in at $6.88, which beat analysts’ consensus estimate of $6.82 per share. Sales increased by 11.1% year-over-year, with revenue hitting $2.6 billion. This missed analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion.
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Ulta Beauty’s comparable sales were up 9.3% against this time last year, though gross profit was down slightly at 40% against 40.1% the previous year. While management noted that store traffic remained “healthy,” Ulta Beauty only opened four stores in net terms this year against 10 this time last year. Ulta Beauty also put $285.8 million into share repurchases, with $816.5 million left to use.
Ulta Beauty management offered up some guidance for the full-year 2023. Formerly, Ulta Beauty looked for between $10.95 billion and $11.05 billion in revenue. Now, it looks for between $11 billion and $11.1 billion. Good news, until you consider analyst consensus was looking for $11.09, which makes a beat much more difficult.
Overall, Wall Street has a consensus price target of $584.40 on Ulta Beauty, implying 20.47% upside potential, as indicated by the graphic above.
